Wow, I’ve Been Out of It

06. December 2008 · Comments Off on Wow, I’ve Been Out of It · Categories: Ain't That America?, Media Matters Not, The Funny

I didn’t even hear about them Rickrolling the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.

To give you a little background:  Rickrolling is a bait and switch meme, sending someone a link  with something like, “Hey, go watch this cool video about cute kittens.” or cool explosions or etc. and then spoof the link so that it takes you to a video of Rick Astley’s 1987 hit, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”  The more absurd or inappropriate the link and/or person you’re Rickrolling, the better.  Apparently Rickrolling Scientologists is especially gratifying…don’t ask me why, seriously, I don’t know.

But when I heard about this, I had to look it up.  How many millions of people watch the Macy’s Parade?  More people were Rickrolled on Thanksgiving than in the two years prior.

Cartoon Network, I salute you.

The Mild, Mild West

02. December 2008 · Comments Off on The Mild, Mild West · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, History, Old West

I succumbed to the blandishments of the overloaded bookshelves at Half-Price Books last Friday, whilst getting a good price on some redundant DVDs. I just knew I shouldn’t have wandered into the section housing assortments of ‘Texiana’ but I did and I was tempted. Since I can resist anything but temptation, I gave in and bought a slightly oversized volume (with color plates!) with the gripping title of “German Artist on the Texas Frontier: Friedrich Richard Petri” for a sum slightly less than the current price on Amazon.

Who was Friedrich Richard Petri, you might ask – and rightfully so for chances are practically no one outside of the local area might have heard of him, he finished very few substantial paintings, was only resident in the Hill Country of Texas for about seven years, and died relatively young.

He was one of those student intellectuals caught up in the ferment of the 1848, along with his friend and fellow-artist (and soon to be brother-in-law) Hermann Lungkwitz. Upon the failure of that movement to reduce the power of the old nobility in favor of something more closely resembling a modern democracy, the two of them resolved to immigrate to America, that promising new land. Once there, they settled upon traveling Texas, where the Adelsverein had previously established substantial enclaves of German settlers, and the weather was supposed to be particularly mild – a consideration, for Richard was plagued by lung ailments. Besides Hermann’s wife, Petri’s sister Elisabet, other members of their had families joined them: Hermann’s widowed mother, and his brother and sister, and Petri’s other sister, Marie. They would become part of the second wave of settlers in the Hill Country; probably just as well, because neither of the Lungkwitz men or Richard Petri had any skill or inclination towards farming, or any other useful pioneering skill. Hermann and Friedrich were artists, Adolph Lungkwitz was a trained metalsmith and glass fabricator.

Traveling by easy stages down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then presumably by regular packet boat to Indianola, the Petri-Lungkwitz families arrived in New Braunfels. They rented a small farm there in the spring of 1851, but did not intend to settle in New Braunfels permanently. It seemed they wished to look around; and so they did, house-hunting and sketching scenes and quick portraits of each other and the people they met. Hermann Lungkwitz later made use of these sketches and scenes in an elaborate lithograph of San Antonio. In July, 1852, the families settled on 320 acres at Live Oak, about five miles southwest of Fredericksburg – and there they settled in, trying to make some sort of living out of farm work and art. They were unaccustomed to the former, although from this account, they seem to have sprung from stock accustomed to hard work, if not precisely in the sort of agrarian work required to make a living in a frontier settlement.

They seem to have gotten along pretty well at that, for the book is full of sketches, watercolors and finished paintings by Petri and Lungkwitz; accomplished and vivid sketches of their friends, their families and the countryside around. There are landscapes of the rolling limestone hills, the stands of oak trees and meadows around Fredericksburg, a distant view of the town, with a brave huddle of rooftops, a poignant sketch of Elisabet, mourning beside the grave of hers and Hermann’s baby son, who lived for only three weeks after his birth. There are sketches of their farmstead, of neatly fenced areas around the two small log houses in which they lived, charming sketches of his sister’s children and their pet deer, of theatrical productions in Fredericksburg – all elaborate costumes and ballet dancers – and of the women in the family going to pay formal calls, balancing their parasols, sitting primly in the seats of an ox-cart. There are sketches of friends, of officers from the Federal army’s garrison at nearby Ft. Martin Scott, of sister Marie’s wedding to neighbor Jacob Kuechler. And there are elaborate sketches of Indians, mostly people of that Comanche tribe which had signed a peace treaty with the German settlers of Fredericksburg and the surrounding areas, for Friedrich Richard Petri had a sympathetic eye and considerable skill. Oh, this is indeed the American frontier, but not quite as we are accustomed to think about it – that never-never land that is the popularly assumed picture that comes to mind whenever anyone thinks “Old West”.
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Another Day, Another Dollar

26. November 2008 · Comments Off on Another Day, Another Dollar · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Home Front, Iraq, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

And another dirty shirt, so to speak. Blogging has been sporadic here; what with doing reviews, working two jobs, the odd bit of housekeeping here and there, and other stuff. Frankly, all my focus is split between setting up events in support of the “Adelsverein Trilogy” (last chance here to purchase copies for delivery by Christmas! Getcher copies of the greatest epic about the Civil War and its aftermath since Gone With The Wind! Gripping drama, true love, savage murder and bitter revenge… and cows! Be the first member of your book club to say that you have read it!)

Not much energy left over, at the end of all that. Matters military? I’ve been retired from the Air Force for ten years now. It was a blast, and a learned a lot, got to travel to the far ends of the earth, meet unusual and interesting people… but I’m in another part of my life now. I don’t want to go pounding on about being a veteran for the rest of my life, as if I had never been or done anything else.

Iraq? Looks like it’s all over, and the good guys won. What a turn-up, eh? I kind of thought it would take a couple of years longer, a slow process of institutions and infrastructure being rebuilt or constructed new. We’d keep a couple of bases there, out in the country and American forces would rotate in and out, in another short while it will be an accompanied tour, and they’d be tourist busses parked in shoals in front of archeological sites like the Hanging Gardens, and Ur of the Chaldees. Tourists would eat ice-cream from street vendors, and little bits of barbequed something on skewers, and walk up and down the promenade by the river, as it turned silver and gold, from a spectacular sunset. Bagdad would be prosperous, full of tall buildings and profitable businesses – like Seoul today. Veterans of the war would return, and look around and say ‘what-the-%#@!?’. Essentially, it’s in the hands of the Iraqis. We’ll lurk around in the background for a bit, or a couple of decades, but the heavy lifting is just about done.

Does look as if we ourselves are headed for another long, economic wobble. Been there. Seen that. I’ve already lost three jobs on that account in this year alone, and Blondie has lost one, and no one is hiring temporary sales help for Christmas this year, so it’s hard to say how much more ghastly it can get for us. Much as I dislike the whole concept and the whole soul-killing processes of the place, it looks like I will be staying on at the Hellish Corporate Phone Banks for more than the six months that I originally planned, or until book sales pick up. As it is, it looks like I am stuck there for only about fifteen hours a week as it is. I put up my hand and volunteer when the call volume falls off, and four whole roomfuls of people are sitting in their cubicles, twiddling their thumbs and chattering to each other. This afternoon, the two college-age girls in the cubicles next to me had a box of new crayons and were coloring in the pictures of My Little Pony in a coloring book.

Yeah, that’s a disturbing image. Slightly more disturbing was a talk with William, the Gentleman With Whom I Keep Company last weekend. He retired from a heroically long stint as a public school teacher, and has a pension paid by the state of California… which for the month of November was one-quarter what it was the month before. One-time-only glitch with his check? An attempt by the state comptroller to fiddle around with things at the end of the fiscal year? Or a harbinger of something more serious … like the budget of the state of California at the top of a long, slippery slope. William hasn’t gotten any credible explanation out of anyone for this… but if the December pension check is down by the same amount, he foresees having to go back to work, too.

Interesting times, for sure.

(I have just ordered copies of all three books of the Adelsverein Trilogy, so the first two or three fans to order them will be in luck, otherwise, I won’t be able to get autographed copies to you by Christmas. Books One and Two are already there at Amazon, here and here, and at Barnes and Noble, here and here

Adelsverein Passing In Review

16. November 2008 · Comments Off on Adelsverein Passing In Review · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, History, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Just a quick update – it’s about three weeks until the official launch of the Adelsverein Trilogy. I should get the final approval print copy of Book 3 – The Harvesting this week from the publisher. The reviews are starting to come in – first, the all-important but short and slightly puzzling one from True West, on their website here. (I really don’t recall writing anything about tornadoes, though. But the important part – a review in True West!!)

Another slightly longer and appreciative review here, at Western Fiction Review. Fun fact; Steve M. the mad fan of Western fiction is actually located in the UK. Must be some sort of cosmic payback for all those American ladies writing breathless Regency romances, or tales of the doings of the Tudors.

Another workmanlike and short review at Midwestern Reviews… mystifyingly parked not at the genre fiction page, but at the American History page. A compliment… I think.

Not a compliment, about the dialogue in this review… sorry, Victorians really talked that way. Just crack a copy of Charles Dickens or Mark Twain. (Consider a grumble about the dumbing down of the American reading public to be inserted here… what, they didn’t talk like the characters in an episode of Friends?! No, sorry. Ah, never mind – although I am beginning to grasp the essence of the eternal writer grumble about remembering a critical comment longer than all the complimentary ones.

Also, amusingly enough – although this blog is a member of PJ Media and on Da Blogfaddah’s blog-roll, I can’t say that I have been particularly overwhelmed lately with helpful links and materiel interest in my attempts to reclaim certain essential American stories, and to publish interesting works of genre fiction outside the mainstream of the American Big-Ass Publishing Combine. So it goes, I expect. To them who have, more shall be given. To those who don’t… suck it up, hard-charger!.

Magic, Continued

15. November 2008 · Comments Off on Magic, Continued · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

The creation of characters is another one of those miracle things. That happens in a couple of different ways. The ones who are historical characters are easiest of course; people like Sam Houston, or Jack Hayes, or John O. Meusebach, all of whom make appearances in the various volumes of the trilogy. There are biographies, and historical accounts of these characters, so it is simplicity itself for me to get an idea of what they were about, how they looked and spoke and what background they came from. This does have its distractions; I was waylaid for a whole week reading biographies and letters of Sam Houston, who makes a brief appearance in “The Sowing”, on the eve of the Civil War.

Then there are the ones which I made up: I start with a requirement for a character, a sort of mental casting call for a certain sort of person, usually to do something. It can be, to continue the movie imagery, anything between a starring role, down to just a short walk-on, bearing a message or providing some kind of service to the plot. I usually don’t get caught up in describing everything about them – which is a tiresome tendency I will leave to romance writers and authors who have fallen in love with their own characters. Just basic age, general coloring, tall or short; a quick sketch rather than a full-length oil painting. I also don’t bother with describing in great detail what they are wearing – that’s another waste of time. Just the basics please – work clothes, or dirty, or ragged, or in the latest fashion, whatever is relevant. And it’s really more artistic to have other characters describe them, or mention key information in casual conversation. That way allows readers to pull up their own visualizations of my characters, which seems to work pretty well and keeps the story moving briskly along.

On certain occasions, that character has instantly popped up in my imagination, fully formed. One moment, I have only a vague sort of notion, and the next second, there they are, appearing out of nowhere, fully fleshed, named and every characteristic vivid and… well, real. “Vati”, the patriarch of the Steinmetz-Richter clan appeared like that: I knew instantly that he would be absentminded, clever, loving books and his family, a short little man who looked like a kobold. His family would in turn, return that affection and on occasion be exasperated by him – but he would be the glue that held his family together. Another middle-aged male character also appeared out of nowhere, “Daddy” Hurst – technically a slave in pre-Civil War Texas, but working as a coachman for another family. His character emerged from the situation of slavery as practiced in Texas, where there were comparatively fewer slaves than there were in other Confederate states. Many of those so held worked for hire at various skilled trades, and also seem to have been allowed considerable latitude, especially if they were working as freight-haulers, ranch hands and skilled craftsmen. Daddy Hurst is one of them; I like to think he adds a little nuance to the ‘peculiar institution’. The only trouble with that kind of character is that if they are supposed to me a minor one – they have a way of taking over, as I am tempted to write too much about them. This was becoming a bit of a challenge with the final part of the trilogy “The Harvesting” since if I had explored all the various characters and the dramatic scenes they wanted – in fact, all but begged for – it would have easily been twice the 500 pages that it has turned out to be. In the name of all the trees that might have been logged to print it – I had so say no, not now. But I have taken note, and will try to work as many of them into the next trilogy. (Yes there will be another trilogy, focusing on some of those interesting side-characters and their own adventures; independent of the Adelsverein story arc. Look, if there are still stories to tell, why shouldn’t I tell them, as long as I can keep it dramatic, interesting, and involving enough to inspire the interested reader to plunk down upwards of $15 for the privilege of reading all about them? But the second-hand editions may go for a bit less…)

Where was I? Oh, characters, the third sort, evolution of… got it. That’s the other sort of character – the ones that I have started out with a certain idea of them, winging it a bit as I sketch out a scene for a chapter. Right there, they evolve, in defiance of my proposed plans for them. In my original visualization of their characters, as the romantic couple in the first book of Adelsverein, Magda Vogel Steinmetz and Carl Becker were supposed to be one of those sparkling and amusing Beatrice and Benedict couples, striking romantic and witty sparks off each other in every encounter, like one of those 1930’s romances of equals. Didn’t work out that way – he turned out to be very reserved, and she to be almost completely humorless. Beatrice and Benedict was so not happening! Within a couple of chapters of having them ‘meet cute’ when he rescues her niece from almost drowning— I tossed that concept entirely. I did recycle it for the romantic couple in the final volume; Peter Vining and Anna Richter. He was a Civil War veteran, an amputee and covering up his apprehensions and self-doubts with a show of desperate humor. She was the clever woman who saw though all those defenses, calmly sized him up as the man she thought she could live with and come to love… and asked him to marry her, never mind the exact particulars. It makes amusing reading, just as I had planned.

The pivotal character of Hansi Richter is the most notable of those evolving characters. He started off as a stock character, the dull and conventional brother-in-law, a sort of foil to the hero. A rejected suitor, but who had married the heroine’s sister as a sort of second-best. That was another one of those initial plans that didn’t quite turn out as originally projected. A supporting character in the first two books, by the third he moved front and center; had developed into a stubborn, ambitious and capable person, quite likeable in his own right – and carrying a good deal of the story forward as he becomes a cattle baron, in the years following the Civil War.

So there it is – as good an explanation that I will ever be able to come up with. All three books of the Trilogy will be available by the end of the month, from Booklocker, of course and also at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I am setting up a number of signings – complete schedule will be posted here.

Post Election Thoughts

09. November 2008 · Comments Off on Post Election Thoughts · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, World

A number of random thoughts, only some of them sad and cynical. Hope springs eternal – after all, we survived four years of Jimmy Carter. A quarter of a century later, we are still mopping up after his major foreign-policy/military disaster – the Iran hostage taking at the Teheran Embassy – but the Republic survived.

The Obama campaign outspent the McCain campaign four to one. I will look to hear murmurings about ‘buying public office’ and ‘campaign reform’ and ‘public financing’ in the next couple of years from the Mighty Wurlitzer of the mainstream news organs, but I am not holding my breath. I will also look to serious investigation of vote fraud in various precincts, especially as regards your friendly neighborhood ACORN office, but again – no breath being held there.

Do you suppose this will put an ash stake through the heart of the ‘America is teh most racist nation eveh!’ meme? Jumping Jeezus on a Pogo Stick, I hope so. I can also hope that the Good Reverend Sharpton and the Good Reverend Jackson might actually go out and get real jobs, doing something useful in their respective communities. I can also wonder if secretly they were both crying into their respective beers last Tuesday night, as the returns came rolling in.

I have about just had it up to here with “unnamed officials” and “anonymous sources” spilling dirt to compliant reporters. This most recent bitchfest of McCain campaign functionaries complaining about Sarah Palin is just the final straw. Sorry, mainstream media whores – up with this I will not put, starting here and from this moment. Either put a name on it, or skip it. And to those Unnamed and Anonymous highly placed sources? Man up and put your name where your mouth is. I mean it. I’ve complained about Sy Hersh doing this for years, suspecting that he is merely being used by his so-so-inside sources and he is too arrogant and F&&#ing dumb to know that he is being played..

And la Palin herself? She was the only reason McCain had a chance at all, so nice way to treat her, just so you have a chance of holding on to your insider access. I still wonder if the incredible, venomous anti-Palin spewings, which seemingly came up from nowhere didn’t have a lot of help from the notoriously efficient Axelrod organization.

How long will the Obama honeymoon last? Probably only a little longer than it takes the One to discover that the Presidency is not an office like that of the Tsar, that matters cannot be instantly resolved with a wave of an imperial hand. Also, the behind-the-scenes activities of various minions cannot be concealed by a local and compliant press for long, anyway. At some point the adoring press will have to get up off their knees and wipe the drool off their lips. The mainstream media, god help us, have been acting like a teenage girl in the throes of their very first crush. The fangirly squeals of “Oh, isn’t he marvelous!” are getting fairly wearing. So are the comparisons to Camelot. I can’t say I particularly remember Camelot at first hand – but I do know that practically everything about the Kennedy administration was a fraud, except for Jackie’s dress sense. And maybe the space program.

It’s one thing to quibble, strike heroic poses and Monday Morning quarterback, when you are on the outside – another to actually have full charge of whatever. Blaming your predecessor usually only works for about six months. A year, tops. I’d feel better about the Obaminator if he had actually stuck around in any of his jobs longer than it took to decide on which upward rung on the ladder he wanted to try for. I also can’t throw the notion that he is one of those fast-burners who rocketed up the ranks so fast that they actually never had time at each step along the way to do much. I think of him as the political version of the charming and ambitious scoundrel hero of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”.

On this weekend’s Prairie Home Companion, I listened to Garrison Keiller warble a hymn of praise to The One, and threw up a little in my mouth. I used to love that show, back when he was poignant and funny.

Finally – wouldn’t it be a hoot if everything that GWB and the Republicans were accused of doing over the last eight years – stealing elections, reviving the draft, corrupting the political process, allowing terrorists to attack on our own soil, selling out our allies for oil, fumbling national disaster response, trashing freedom of speech, oppressing minority racial and religious groups, bullying legislators and civil servants, neglecting military veterans – actually turn out to be SOP for the new administration?

Oh, yeah. I would laugh and laugh and laugh – if I weren’t already crying.

Never Give Up, Never Give In

04. November 2008 · Comments Off on Never Give Up, Never Give In · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Military, Politics

(clip posted by Simon at Classical Values, and Power and Control)

Don’t give it to him – make him steal it.

The New Aristos

25. October 2008 · Comments Off on The New Aristos · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Politics

Funny old world that. It took the nomination of Sarah Palin to the R-VP slot to bring it to our attention – with a considerable jolt, let it be added – that we have a native aristocratic class in this here U S of A. Over and above the one that we thought we always had before, but every bit as snobbish and loaded down with entitlements and sense of superiority as any member of the pre-revolutionary French nobility. The ancient regime is what they were called in the history books, only our current and most visible lot are every bit as capricious, arrogant and demanding- and as viciously insulting as any French nobleman in powdered wig, satin coat and four-inch red heels, about some hardworking plain sturdy bourgeoisie in a plain cloth coat who has the nerve to think that because they work at a trade that dirties their hands that they also have the right to grasp the reins of political power. Especially in matters to do with taxes and all that.

Ah, well – the French ancient regime found out that the resolution to that conundrum soon enough – the conundrum that postulated that free citizens who contribute to the upkeep of necessary institutions might have a right and a duty to have some kind of say about the manner of that upkeep, and the duties of those institutions as defined. The resolution of that little dispute was messy … and in any case put the French generally in the hands of a regime even more destructive of personal choice, peace, freedom etc. than the exquisitely dressed swells of before.

You see, we always had our own aristocracy, from the earliest days of the republic; an aristocracy of talent mostly, of money sometimes, and very occasionally of family – but never for long. Over the long haul, this republic of ours was a ruthless meritocracy. Money might be there, family might be there, ability and ambition by the bucket-load, but absent any institutional aristocracy to cement it all into place, our native aristocracy was an ever-shifting affair, more a matter of local ‘old families’ who owned a bigger farm, had a bigger house or a larger industry than all of their neighbors. (I wrote about them last year, here )
But lately I can’t help but wonder if the new aristocrats are something more malignant in their regard towards those they wish to rule over, more purely poisonously, nakedly self-serving of their own interests, regardless of the harm being done to the nation as a whole.

Our career-serving political class, the education establishment, the traditional news media, the people responsible for (in a good and in a bad way) for our movies and television entertainment – it seems of late that too many of them are singing with the same voice and the same song. Different words, perhaps, and out of some obscure motivation, but all to the same end, and now and again I detect some whisper of the same motivating contempt for the American public. Contempt for our tastes or lack of same, of our habits in shopping, amusing ourselves, our persistent attachment to religious beliefs, to habits of self-sufficiency, and our stubborn disinclination to do or believe as our self-nominated betters dictate – it’s all on very ugly display. The media gang-up on Joe the Plumber, for having the impertinence to ask a tough question of the favored candidate was just the most recent and most open, and the most unsettling display.

Really, what do these new aristos expect of the masses, the proletariat, the common citizenry? More and more I have the feeling that we are seen as a kind of herd animal, to be periodically sheared like sheep, relieved of whatever fleece or funds that the new aristos feel they could make better use of, to do as we are told, to not really consider our property, our children, or our earnings as our own. If the aristos decide that they require such things to be given up – well, then, fall in line the loyal peasantry. And don’t forget to smile.

We are being put back in our place, after a two-hundred plus year experiment of being responsible and independent citizens – not so much by actual physical repression, but by words – words and deeds wielded by the new aristos, to wreck our institutions from the inside, and water down those basic freedoms as established in the constitution, to shred free speech and condemn us to silence for fear of a mob – a mob directed by an unholy confabulation of the aristos. Not too late to go storm the Bastille though – on Voting Day. Don’t give up. Ever.

Huh?

22. October 2008 · Comments Off on Huh? · Categories: Ain't That America?

Can someone explain why a stronger dollar, lower oil prices and wall street going down is bad for ME?  I’m not getting it.

A Literary Interview

20. October 2008 · Comments Off on A Literary Interview · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

This is the game that some of us ‘real arthurs’ are playing over at the IAG Blog; each author so inclined is doing an interview with his or her own characters. Some of us have done this already for our own sites, with most amusing results. I thought I should cross-post my own effort here. The corporate entity/sweatshop that I work at, of late for a steadily diminishing number of hours, just slashed my work hours again. Any income for readers wishing to buy “To Truckee’s Trail” , order a set of the “Adelsverein Trilogy” or even the little memoir cobbled together from my early entries (when this site was still called Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief – which entries are now, alas, almost impossible to find due to an inability on our part to work out where the hell they were hosted, but if you really would like to read again any of them that you are most fond of, let me know and I will pull them out of my archive and re-post… oh, hell where was I?) Interview with my book characters… got it.

Elisha Stephens (ES) and Isaac Hitchcock (IH) from “To Truckee’s Trail”

Sgt. Mom: So, gentlemen – thank you for taking a little time from your duties as wagon master and… er… assistant trail guide to answer questions from The Independent Authors’ Guild about your experiences in taking a wagon train all the way to California.

ES: (inaudible mumble)
IH: (chuckling richly) Oh, missy, that ain’t no trouble at all, seein’ as I ain’t really no guide, no-how. I’m just along for the ride, with my fuss-budget daughter Izzy an’ her passel o’ young ones. Heading to Californy, they were, after m’ son-in-law. He been gone two year, now. Went to get hisself a homestead there, sent a letter sayin’ they were to come after. Me, I think he went to get some peace an’ quiet… Izzy, she’s the nagging sort…

Sgt. Mom: Yes, Mr. Hitchcock… but if I may ask you both – why California? There was no trail to follow once past Ft. Hall in 1844. Neither of you, or your chief guide, Mr. Greenwood had even traveled that overland trail, before Why not Oregon, like all the other travelers that year?

ES: Nicer weather.
IH: Waaalll, as I said, Samuel Patterson, Izzy’s man, he was already there, had hisself a nice little rancho, an’ o’ course Izzy wouldn’t hear no different about taking a wagon and the passel o’ young-uns and going to join him. (Winking broadly) And it ain’t exackly true that I never had been there, no sirreebob. I been there years before, came over with some fur-trapping friends o’mine. But it was unofficial-like. We wasn’t supposed to be there, but the alcalde and the governor an them, they all looked the other way, like. Beautiful country it were then – golden mustard on all them hills, and the hills and valleys so green and rich with critters – you’d believe they walk up and almost beg to be made your dinner! (chuckles and slaps his knee) Missy, the stories I could tell you, folk wouldn’t believe!

ES: (inaudible mumble)
Sgt. Mom: Captain Stephens, I didn’t quite hear that – did you have something to add?

ES: (slightly louder) Most don’t. Believe him.

Sgt. Mom: And why would that be, Mr. Stephens?
ES: Tells too many yarns. Exaggerates something turrible.

Sgt. Mom: But surely Mr. Hitchcock’s experience was of value…
ES: Some entertaining, I’ll give him that.

Sgt. Mom: Would you care to explain?
ES: No.

IH: (Still chuckling) The Capn’ is a man of few words, missy, an’ them he values as if each one were worth six bits. The miracle is he was ever elected captain, back at the start in Council Bluffs.
ES: Doc Townsend’s idea.
IH: And the Doc’s doing, missy! Everyone thought he’d be the captain of the party, for sure, but he let out that he had enough to do with doctorin’, and didn’t want no truck with organizing the train and leading all us fine folk out into the wilderness.

ES: Sensible man.

Sgt. Mom: I take that you are referring to your party co-leader, Doctor Townsend. Why do you say that, Captain Stephens?

ES: Knows his limits.
IH: Ah, but the Doctor, he’s a proper caution! He’s an eddicated man, no doubt. Took a whole box of books, all the way over the mountains. I tell you, missy – everyone looked to the Doctor. Everyone’s good friend, trust in a pinch and in a hard place without a second thought. Did have a temper, though – member, ‘Lisha, with old Derby and his campfire out on the plains, when you gave order for no fires to be lit after dark, for fear of the Sioux? Old Man Derby, he just kept lighting that fire, daring you an’ the Doc to put it out. Onliest time I saw the Doc near to losing his temper…

Sgt. Mom: (waiting a moment and looking toward ES) Do you want to elaborate on that, Captain Stephens?

ES: No.

Sgt. Mom: Very well then – if you each could tell me, in your opinion, what was the absolute, very worst part of the journey and the greatest challenge. Mr. Hitchcock?

IH: Oh, that would be the desert, missy. They call it the Forty-Mile Desert, but truth to tell, I think it’s something longer than that. All the way from the last water at the Sink… Me, I’d place it at sixty miles an’more. We left at sundown, with everything that would hold water full to the brim, an’ the boys cut green rushes for the oxen. Everyone walked that could, all during the night, following the Cap’n an’ Ol’ Greenwood’s boy, riding ahead with lanterns, following the tracks that Cap’n Stephens an’ the Doc and Joe Foster made, when they went on long scout to find that river that the o’l Injun tol’ us of. A night and a day and another night, missy – can you imagine that? No water, no speck of green, no shade. Jes’ putting one foot in front of the other. Old Murphy, he told them old Irish stories to his children, just to keep them moving. The oxen – I dunno how they kept on, bawlin’ for water all that time, and nothing but what we had brung. We had to cut them loose when they smelled that water in the old Injun’s river, though. Otherwise they’d have wrecked the wagons, and then where would we have been, hey?

Sgt. Mom: In a bit of a pickle, I should imagine. Captain Stephens, what did you see as the most challenging moment?
ES: Getting the wagons up the pass.
IH: Hah! Had to unload them, every last scrap – and haul them wagons straight up a cliff. Give me a surefooted mule anytime, missy – those critters can find a way you’d swear wasn’t fit fer anything but a cat…

Sgt Mom: (waiting a moment for more from Captain Stephens.) Did you want to elaborate, Captain Stephens.

ES: No.

Sgt. Mom: Well… thank the both of you for being so frank and forthcoming about your incredible journey – I think we’ve managed to use up all the time that we have…

Getting to the Starting Gate

17. October 2008 · Comments Off on Getting to the Starting Gate · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, History, Home Front, Old West, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

I’m almost there, with the Adelsverein Trilogy, or as Andrew B. called it so many months ago, “Barsetshire with cypress trees and lots of sidearms”. I began doing work for a local small publisher here in San Antonio; most of it has been spec work, but I did earn something for re-vamping their website, and have a prospect of earning more, doing writing, editing, general admin work, customer hand-holding and building or maintaining websites. The final volume is being edited, the cover is designed and approved – I even put up all three on my literary website, here. (Don’t they look georgous? I am still taking pre-orders, for delivery just before the official release date of December 10. I have a signing at the Twig Bookshop in Alamo Heights December 11, another at Berkman Books in Fredericksburg on December 19th… and the first Saturday in January I will have a discussion of the books and a signing at the Pioneer Museum in Fredericksburg. A certain number of reviews are scheduled to come out in November – links to be provided when available. I would so like the Trilogy to hit big; tell all your friends, pre-order from me or from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Not just the Trilogy, too – Truckee’s Trail is still selling, and every once in a while someone buys “Our Grandpa was an Alien”.

I am taking a break from writing, from starting on the next project until after getting Adelsverein fairly launched. Just the odd bit of book and movie reviews, blogging and tooting my own horn, market-wise, and reading a tall stack of books to get ready for the first installment of a new trilogy; this one set in the last days of Spanish and Mexican Texas, when there were all sorts of odd characters wandering around… oh, and working for reliable (mostly reliable) pay at the corporate phone bank enterprise up the road, three and a half days a week, in an attempt to at least pay some of the bills regularly, while waiting for the publishing work, and the royalties for my own books to roll in.

It’s a corporate, customer service-type job, not as onerous as some, since it involves booking hotel reservations, so most of the people who call are happy, pleased to be going on a holiday… not furious and spitting nails because their (insert expensive bit of technology here) can’t be made to work and they have been on hold or navigating the phone tree for x amount of time. Alas, it seems that either the economy is beginning to adversely affect them; they were sending people home quite regularly for the last couple of weeks, some of them almost in the first few minutes that they walked in the door. Yesterday I find that all the part-timers’ work schedules have been cut by a day – which essentially reduces my paycheck by almost a third. I can’t say that I am entirely heartbroken about this. I am not entirely enjoying anything much about it; not sitting in a small cubicle having every word recorded, and down-graded because I spend so many more seconds on calls than the person in the next cubicle, or wrestling with entering data into a DOS based system at least twenty years old, (maybe thirty), a pointless dress-code and about thirty things you might do that would justify instant firing. I had reckoned on being able to stick it out for six months, past Christmas, but at the rate they are cutting hours, I think they may be just trying to let us go by slow degrees.

Just to put the icing on the cake, Blondie was let go from her 20-hour a week job, as that little company may be circling the drain. Hardly anyone wants to install permanent shade structures, since they are a fairly big-ticket item. There was barely enough business to keep the office open, so there went that source of income. I have taken her over to my own occasional office job at the ranch real estate firm, and trained her on that she can pick up work there on days when I simply cannot. She starts school again after Christmas.

Aside from all that, nothing much to report. You?

Texiana: The Real Philip Nolan

12. October 2008 · Comments Off on Texiana: The Real Philip Nolan · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Old West

Yes, there was a real Philip Nolan, and the writer Edward Everett Hale was apparently remorseful over borrowing his name for the main character in his famous patriotic short story, “The Man Without A Country”.

The real Philip Nolan had a country… and an eye possibly on several others, which led to a number of wild and incredible adventures. The one of those countries was Texas, then a Spanish possession, a far provincial outpost of Mexico, then a major jewel in the crown of Spain’s overseas colonies. Like the fictional Philip Nolan – supposedly a friend of Aaron Burr and entangled in the latter’s possibly traitorous schemes, the real Philip Nolan also had a friend in high places. Like Burr, this friend was neck deep in all sorts of schemes, plots and double-deals. Unlike Burr, Nolan was also this friend’s trusted employee and agent. That highly placed and influential friend was one James Wilkinson, sometime soldier, once and again the most senior general in the Army of the infant United States – and paid agent of the Spanish crown — and acidly described by a historian of the times as never having won a battle or lost a court-martial, and another as “the most consummate artist in treason that the nation ever possessed”. Wilkinson was an inveterate plotter and schemer, with a finger in all sorts of schemes, beginning as a young officer in the Revolutionary War to the time he died of old age in1821. The part about ‘dying of old’ age’ is perfectly astounding, to anyone who has read of his close association with all sorts of shady dealings. It passes the miraculous, how the infant United States managed to survive the baleful presence of Wilkinson, lurking in the corridors of power. It might be argued that our founding fathers were a shrewd enough lot that Wilkinson didn’t do more damage than he did. It would have argued even more for their general perspicuity, though, if he had been unceremoniously shot at dawn, or hung by the neck… by any one of the three countries which did business with Wilkenson… and whom he cheerfully would have sold out to any one of those others who had offered a higher bid.

But it is this particular protégé who is the subject of this essay – supposedly born in Ireland, and apparently well-educated, who worked for Wilkinson as secretary, bookkeeper and apparently general all around go-to guy. He was possibly also the first American to deliberately venture far into Texas – and return to tell the tale, not once but several times, at a time when an aging and sclerotic Spanish empire was looking nervously and very much askance at the bumptious and venturesome young democracy… whose frontiers moved ever closer to its own. The welcome mat was most definitely not out; adventurous trespassers were either driven back… or taken to Mexico in irons and put to work in penal servitude. (Certain exceptions had been made for Catholics, or those who could make some convincing pretense of being Irish, or otherwise convince the Spanish authorities in Texas of their relative harmlessness.) In the year 1791, Nolan procured a passport from the Spanish governor of New Orleans, and permission to venture into Texas, ostensibly in pursuit of trade; goods for horses, which were plentiful, easy to catch and profitable. Still quite young, around the age of twenty, and not quite as wily as his employer, Nolan had his trade goods confiscated in San Antonio, and was forced to flee into the back country to evade arrest. Amazingly, he lived among the Indians (of which tribe is unknown) and earned back his stake by trapping sufficient beaver pelts to buy his way out of trouble with the San Antonio authorities – and a herd of horses. Several years later, armed with another passport, Nolan ventured into Texas again, remaining in San Antonio long enough to ingratiate himself with the governor, Manuel Munoz, be included in the census – and to court a local belle. This time, he returned to Louisiana with a larger herd of horses. For a time after the second trip, Nolan worked for an American boundary commissioner, surveying and mapping the Mississippi River, which seemed to have aroused the suspicious of other Spanish authorities, including the Viceroy, the King of Spain’s good right hand in Mexico. Obviously, some of these Spanish and Mexicans were not quite as susceptible to Nolan’s charm and the ever-slippery Wilkenson’s conniving – for he was still very much Wilkenson’s protégé and possibly agent. Still – he managed to get a legitimate passport for one more trading trip into Texas. Trading was the cover story, but Nolan was also supposed to map what he saw in Texas, although no maps have ever been found. He remained in Texas for two or three years, marrying and fathering a daughter, before leaving at top speed. The Viceroy had given orders for his arrest, but protected by his friendship with Manuel Munoz, he left Spanish Texas under safe-conduct, accompanied by a herd of nearly 1,500 horses.
More »

The Other Marketplace

05. October 2008 · Comments Off on The Other Marketplace · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Memoir, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Blondie and I went out to what may be possibly the most marvelous permanently-revolving street market in a permanent place, this afternoon: Busey’s Flea Market, on 1-35 North, along about the other-wise invisible town of Schertz. It’s about fifteen minutes brisk driving outside the San Antonio city limits. As Blondie describes it, it’s a yard sale on steroids, a range of three long parallel sheds extending uphill from the frontage road. The front of Busey’s is adorned with a gigantic concrete armadillo. It’s been freshly repainted this year, business must be good, although one of the regular stallholders lamented that the rents had been raised, which drove out a certain number of old regulars. Damn if I could tell the difference, though. Actually, it seemed like the pickings were unnaturally good. The stall with the WWII and German aviation memorabilia was as unattended as ever. Will has tried to buy stuff there, and been frustrated because no one can ever locate the person authorized to make sales. The guy with the nice and orderly selection in books was having a going-out-of-business sale, but that was the only harbinger of immanent change.

See, there are a number of different tiers of vendor at Busey’s – the well-established ones with medium-deep pockets and long-term plans have a space in one of the sheds, with a locking door, although what sort of permanence that can mean, when the shed is roofed in un-insulated tin and the walls are made out of something-not-very-permanent-at all… 2 x 4’s and tissue paper, I suspect. Never mind – the permanent vendors have their stalls packed so full, and their premises so well-organized it is obvious they are not going anywhere soon. Not without the aid of a couple of moving-vans and some strong backs, at least. Carpets, hardware, antiques, military surplus, books, kitchenware, Mexican ceramics … and all that. And more. Much, much more. There are a also a good few vendors of fast food – ice cream, hot dogs, BBQ sandwiches, chili-cheese fries (an interesting and artery-clogging combination, sort of the entrée-course variant of a deep-fried Mars-bar) and thank god, cold water. There is also a curendera/palm-reader advertising her ability to tell the past, present and future, a pet store with an array of birds, and today a guy outside the venue, offering Chihuahua puppies – very cute, light-chocolate colored with white feet. Yeah, The Lesser Weevil would have liked them very much. “For me? Thanks very much for the lunch!” The cats, however, would have preferred the birds.

After the permanent, enclosed stalls, there are the tables, under one of three long awnings, rambling up the hill. People back their cars and pick-ups up to their pitch, and unpack what they have – plants, ironwork, DVDs, spurious folk art, tools, garden ornaments, house wares, small and large appliances— practically anything you could imagine. Blondie insists that the pros – who hit all the yard sales, swooping down with lightning fast-speed and scooping up the good stuff — they show up at Busey’s with their gleanings within a day or so. They also hit the various ‘everything marked down-absolutely must go! sales, and thrift stores instantly when the new donations are put out. Their stock must come from somewhere, after all. Some of this still has the original tags still on it. These vendors, although regular, have the chore of packing it all up and taking it away every Sunday afternoon. Be warned – they usually start at this by about 3 PM.

The last tier of vender must be those people who are not regulars, who have a table for a weekend only. Dad always said that those are the vendors whom are most likely to offer really good bargains – they just want to get rid of it for a so-so price. Unlike the regular vendors with a permanent pitch, with doors that can be locked, they are not canny and not particularly knowledgeable about what they have to vend. This is where the stunning coups are made, where people buy something for a couple of dollars, and turn up with it on “Antiques Road-show” a couple of years later. This afternoon, Blondie scored a pressed-glass bowl of deep black glass, nearly half an inch thick. She got it for $12 dollars, and according to one of the permanent dealers, something like that could sell at Busey’s for about thrice that. Deity only knows how much to an expert – but we liked it. It met the criterion of being strong and thick enough to kill someone if you hit them with it.

Me, I would only love to be asked to host a TV show where the challenge would be to entirely fit out a whole house with the gleanings from a place like Busey’s and assorted other local thrift stores. Furniture, linens, curtains, knick-knacks, wall art, kitchen fittings, china and glass – the whole thing, at drop-dead bargain rates .

I don’t have an agent – if the Home and Garden Network is interested, let us know through this website… Oh, and we were only going there to look for drawer pulls for the 1880-1920 dressing table that Blondie picked up for $25 dollars at a yard sale. She beat the pros to it. The backs of the drawers are all dove-tailed… but the front of it was such a wreck, that’s why the pros gave it a miss.

Just for Fun – 101 Uses for an Antique Tractor

03. October 2008 · Comments Off on Just for Fun – 101 Uses for an Antique Tractor · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General Nonsense, Technology

(courtesy of Al Past, another IAG Member, and also cross-posted at the IAG Blog)

An Old Mission Church Half Tumbled Down

26. September 2008 · Comments Off on An Old Mission Church Half Tumbled Down · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Military, Old West, World

That is just what it was, when the building which is the premier landmark in San Antonio – and perhaps all of the rest of Texas – first achieved fame immortal, in the short and bloody space of an hour and a half, just before sunrise on a chill spring morning in 1836. People who come to visit today, with an image in their mind from the movies about it – from John Wayne’s version, and the more recent 2004 movie, or from sketch-maps in books about the desperate, fourteen-day siege are usually taken back to discover that it is so small. So I know, because I thought so the first time I visited it as an AF trainee on town-pass in 1978. And it is small – one of those Spanish colonial era buildings, in limestone weathered to the color of old ivory. That chapel is only a remnant of a sprawling complex of buildings. Itself and the so-called ‘Long Barracks’ are the only things remaining of what was once called the Mission San Antonio de Valero, given it’s better known appellation by a company of Spanish cavalry stationed there in the early 19th century – they called it after the cottonwood trees around their previous station of Alamo de Parras, in Coahuila. It was the northernmost of a linked chain of five mission complexes, threaded like baroque pearls on a green ribbon, and originally established to tend to the spiritual needs and the protection of local Christianized Indian tribes. The missions were secularized at the end of the 18th century, the lands around distributed to the people who had lived there. Their chapels became local parish churches – while the oldest of them all became a garrison.

There is in existence a birds-eye view map of San Antonio in 1873, a quarter century after the last stand of Travis and Bowie’s company that shows a grove of trees in rows behind the apse of the old chapel building. In the year that the map was made, the chapel and the remaining buildings were still a garrison of sorts – an Army supply depot, and the plaza in front of it a marshalling yard. One wonders if any of the supply sergeants of that time or any of the laborers unloading the wagons bringing military supplies up from the coast and designated for the garrisons of the Western frontier forts gave a thought to the building they worked in. Did they think the place was haunted, perhaps? Did they hear whispers and groans in the dark, think anything of odd stains on the floors and walls, of regular depressions in the floor where defensive trenches had been dug at the last? What did they think, piling up crates, barrels and boxes, in the place that the final handful of survivors had made their last stand, against the tide of Santa Anna’s soldiers flooding over the crumbling walls?

Probably not much– whitewash covers a lot. And a useful, sturdy building is just that – useful. By the 1870s, those Regular Army NCOs working in there were veterans of the Civil War, and perhaps haunted enough by their own war, just lately over. The growing city had spread beyond those limits that William Travis, David Crocket and James Bowie would have seen, looking down from those very same walls.

In 1836 that cluster of buildings, and the old church with it’s ornate niches and columns twisted like lengths of barley sugar sat a little distance from the outskirts of the best established provincial town in that part of Spanish and Mexican Texas, out in the meadows by a loop of clear, narrow river fringed by rushes and willows. San Antonio de Bexar, mostly shortened then to simply “Bexar”, was then just a close clustered huddle of adobe brick buildings around two plazas and the stumpy spire of the church of San Fernando. It is a challenge to picture it, in the minds eye, to take away the tall glass buildings all around, the lawns and carefully tended flowering shrubs, to ignore the sounds of traffic, the SATrans busses belching exhaust, and see it as it might have appeared, a hundred and sixty years ago. I think there would have been cottonwood trees, close by. Thirsty trees, they plant themselves across the west, wherever there is water in plenty, their leaves trembling incessantly in the slightest breeze. There might have also have been some fruit orchards planted nearby – the 1873 map certainly shows them. But otherwise, it would have been open country, rolling meadows star-scattered with trees, and striped across by two roads; the Camino Real, the King’s road, towards Nacogdoches in the east, and the road towards the south, towards the Rio Grande. In the distance to the north, a long blue-green rise of hills marks the edge of what today is called the Balcones Escarpment. It is the demarcation between a mostly flat and fertile plain which stretches to the Gulf Coast, and the high and windswept plains of the Llano, haunted by fierce and war-loving Indians.

This is the place where three very different men came to, in that fateful year that the Texians rebelled against the rule of the dictatorship of what the knowledgeable settlers of Texas called the “Centralistas” – the dictatorship of the central government in Mexico City.

(More to follow)

The Bandar-Log

23. September 2008 · Comments Off on The Bandar-Log · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, My Head Hurts, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, World

Here we sit in a branchy row, thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do, all complete, in a minute or two—
Something noble and wise and good, done by merely wishing we could…

In following the current twists and turns of the current election season, with particular attention to the hackerish little creeps who think it is an excellent thing to break into email accounts… tell me, why is it a Good Thing and entirely justifiable for people in sympathy with the Obama campaign to break into Governor Palin’s yahoo account, looking for incriminating evidence of dark plots and deeds… but it was a Bad Thing for Richard Nixon’s cabal of plumbers to break into the Watergate looking for incriminating evidence of dark deeds and plots? Oh yes, that was before you were born, probably. But they made a movie about it, so you must have heard about Simply Teh Greatest Political Crime EVER!!!! Just sit down, and think about this real hard. And look up the definition of hypocrisy, while you are at it.

Bottom line, for those of you whose moral sense is situational – if it is a crime for free-lance or paid operatives to break into another party’s HQ, operating office, personal email account… whatever, on a fishing expedition – than it is a crime all the way around, no matter how justified you think you are in your motivation. Those of your friends, teachers, college professors and fellow Kossacks who may have been insisting otherwise? They are wrong. I would advise you to stop listening to people like that.

I would also stop paying much attention to our Major Media Creatures and those who keep popping out of their ol’ golden rolodex to screech about Sarah Palin. Just a quick look down some of those crazier rants (especially the ones by foreigners) about the suddenly front-and-center Governor of Alaska — her relative inexperience, all around tackiness, blue-collar-ness, lack of capital-F feminist credentials, religious beliefs, et cetera gives cause for serious head shaking. Jeeze, people, get a grip! Take a valium. (In the case of Heather Mallick, take a lot of valium. In the case of Sandra Bernhard, a lot of valium, a lot of scotch and please review a basic human anatomy text.) Pouring all this vitriol on someone you probably didn’t even know about three weeks ago seems kind of… I don’t know, unbalanced? She’s only been front and center on the major American political scene for three weeks, and she is already attracting a degree of odium usually reserved for someone who has been around for a bit, and done some bad things. Like a reckless, grandstanding, philanderer with a taste for shady friends. But enough about Bill Clinton.

And then there the not-terribly-surprising discovery by Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report that certain alleged and dubious factoids about Governor Palin which suddenly began sprouting like toadstools after a rain were actually planted by the minions and employees of a well-known and well-connected publicity firm, in the sure and certain knowledge that the howler monkeys of the KOSsacks left would fall on them as if on a tasty treat and repeat them incessantly.

All the talk we ever have heard, uttered by bat or beast or bird—
Hide or fin or scale or feather— Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again! Now we are talking just like men!

Of course, once this precious little piece of Astroturf was tracked to it’s originating point, everything got yanked, with the speed of a cartoon character at the end of a long piece of elastic band. Note to self – every time I start to notice the same poisonous little factoid appearing spontaneously and simultaneously in – blog entries and blog comments, from out of the mouths of the dumber Hollywood celebs and the sort of TV commenter who goes from rational to spittle-fleck rant in thirty seconds flat, I will assume that some busy little astoturfers have been at work, behind the scenes. And that someone like Rusty or another enthusiast will be able to track it back to the originating source. It’s not like you can launch damaging rumors without leaving any marks, people. The internet never forgets. The tracks are always there, especially when someone does a screen-capture or downloads a file.

Finally, the recent request from the Big O for his minions to really get out there and go all righteous in confronting those of us who are less than fully enamored – great idea! Yeah, people just love getting hectored and bulled, and called names like ‘racist’ and ‘hater’. My suggestion – put on a leather teddy, spike heels and fishnet stockings. Brandish a leather crop, too. You might not get anywhere politically with that scenario, but at least that part of the audience who is into playing kinky submissive games will get some cheap thrills, while the rest of us look on in amusement.

Damn, did this election season get interesting all of a sudden. Who’d a thunk it possible, back in January, 2008.

The Persistence of Plastic Turkey Memory

17. September 2008 · Comments Off on The Persistence of Plastic Turkey Memory · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, My Head Hurts, Politics, Rant, sarcasm

A running gag at Tim Blair’s blog over the last five years or so has been reports of the appearance of the eternal bird in the dribblings of various writers, entertainers and columnists. That is, a sneering reference to the pictures of President Bush holding a supposedly plastic turkey, in a series of pictures taken at his surprise Thanksgiving visit to troops in Iraq five years ago. Explained and debunked over and over again by eyewitnesses that it was a real turkey, for display at the steam tables where the main entrée was being dished out, put together by the mess-hall staff and that such displays are actually commonplace at military mess halls… the plasticized version of this meme appears yet again, unscathed, rather like a turkey-shaped Freddy Kruger. The bird is not only the word, it is eternal. (Spotted yet again this very morning, as I contemplated this essay while being dragged around the block by the dogs.)

Obviously, this is a convenient short-hand for the people who enjoy sneering at George W. Bush and are too damned lazy to rustle up something a little more current than the old plastic turkey story. Tim Blair and his commenters get a lot of mileage – and a lot of hearty chortling – but the fact that the meme is still current after five years and a ton of energetic debunking is kind of depressing. It proves that Joseph Goebbels was on to something when he observed the effectiveness of telling a big lie and sticking to it… even at the cost of looking ridiculous. If a story is repeated often enough, it will be believed by a depressingly large number of people: 9/11 was an inside plot by the Bush Administration, Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans was completely blameless in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the 2000 election was stolen, the Swiftboat veterans’ claims about John Kerry were all debunked, that US government were Saddam Hussein’s biggest supplier of military equipment… oh, add your own favorite here, the list is practically endless.

Such memes persist because they are repeated incessantly by all sorts of people, against all available evidence to the contrary. The most depressing aspect is that in a lot of cases they are repeated by media figures that once I would have expected better from – and applauded by audiences that I also expected better of. (Garrison Keillor being a particular offender. I can barely stand to listen to Prairie Home Companion these days, and I used to love that show.) Now I only hope for better. Sad to say, that hope is growing fainter and fainter by the hour… especially over the last two weeks. As if it wasn’t bad enough to suspect our very own dear media folks of being lazy and careless in vetting stories in the last election cycle, as if it wasn’t bad enough that 60 Minutes could air a blatant hit piece just before election day, based on shaky fact-checking and dubious memos in an attempt to throw the election to John Kerry… as if the hurricane of vitriol this time around didn’t reach a new and unexplored depths with the Palin-faked-pregnancy story, now it looks as if mainstream media has moved solidly into place as a propaganda arm of the Obama Democrats.

Not just the dirt-digging on Governor Palin – it’s the asymmetrical dirt-digging. Plus the final edit of her interview with Charles Gibson, with her answers judiciously edited to put the worst complexion on them… (sample of it here) plus the staging of it in the studio, plus his hectoring manner, so very different from his interview with Senator Obama. Really, it does give one pause. Then consider the cover shoot of Senator McCain, for the Atlantic Magazine, with such very artistic and well-considered outtakes doctored by the photographer….

Just some examples from the last couple of weeks… but still, very revealing ones, about the various aspects of the current political scene. I wouldn’t go so far as to make a blanket insistence that the whole lot are in the tank for the Obama campaign… but I sure as hell wouldn’t assume anything about their impartiality, either. Were I a media advisor to a Republican nominee to high office, I’d certainly be advising a quick pre-interview google-search of the interviewer’s name… and for the nominee to bring along his or her own own camera crew.

(Thanks Sigivald – corrected!)

Seven Years

11. September 2008 · Comments Off on Seven Years · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, GWOT, History, World

Supposedly, seven years is the time it takes for a human body’s cells to regenerate, to have new cells completely replace the old cells. I don’t know that factoid is true, strictly speaking, or if it just applies to the skin. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that it’s not true at all, but is just one of those curiosities which seems right, if somewhat startling at first thought.

Seven years; long enough for the scar tissue to grow over, for the breaks in the solid rock underpinning our universe to calcify, to heal over – and for us to become accustomed to living in a world without the silhouette of a pair of silver towers gleaming in the sunshine of a cool September morning. Long enough to become used to the absence, and accustomed to the wrenching changes, to acclimate ourselves to a new reality. But not long enough to become used to the absence, to the space in a life where a husband, a wife, a son or daughter, or a friend used to be. Never long enough to forget the sight of a tall building – first one and then the other – falling into itself, dissolving into a dark blizzard-cloud of smoke and debris, and taking the lives of thousands of people with it. No, never forget that; it’s the vision I see now, whenever I listen to Mozarts’ Requiem.

Seven years of change since that morning, the morning when our world shuddered and for many of us, wrenched itself onto a new track. The changes have come so thick and fast, that the glorious September morning now and again seems to have happened a couple of decades ago. Two wars, one which seems now to be perilously won and the other still in balance, two presidential elections, the rise of a new media, the slow implosion of the old – the aftermath of a violent hurricane devastating the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast, (and another one which at this very moment seems destined to hit the Texas coast like a pile-driver) and any number of other events which strutted and fretted for their moment on the national and international stage; all of this moved the events of one day, the day of 9-11-01 away from a current event and into the pages of history.

But for today, and just for today, we set down the burdens of today for a moment, and remember.

(The letter that I wrote about that day is here, in the old MT archive)

The Discrete Charm of the Frontier Woman

09. September 2008 · Comments Off on The Discrete Charm of the Frontier Woman · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Media Matters Not, Old West, Politics, World

I understand that some of our foreign observers generally are having a bit of trouble grokking the attraction of Sarah Palin amongst the blue-collar electorate in a variety of American locales not known for exhibiting that Olde Worlde Cosmopolitan Charm. Lord knows our very own dear political and media elite are having much the same kind of problem. Kind of fun to watch them twist and squirm in the icy cold wind, as they slowly realize that the rest of the ’08 campaign will not be a walk in the park for the Fresh Prince of Chicago – that the anticipated coronation might have to be put on hold… with luck for the foreseeable future. I ought not to enjoy the sight so much… but I – aside from the collection of Japanese prints and affection for Bach’s Brandenburg concerti – am a person with simple taste in amusements. This election season is turning out to be way too much fun.

OK, back to my main point – the reasons why we kind of like Sarah Palin. There are any number of considered reasons to not like her political stance. Some may be put off by the adamantly ant-abortion bit, or a distinct lack of enthusiasm for big-government solutions to real world problems, and a certain lack of experience with persistent and endemic problems in mega-big Americian cities. When I think of desperately broken inner cities with huge gang problems, endemic poverty and the occasional outbreak of rioting, Juneau, AK is about the last place which comes to mind. Something about extreme heat and extreme cold keeping people law-abiding, mostly because going out and breaking the law in a serious way is just too damn uncomfortable.

These days, when we turn on the tube or go to a movie, we get the strong woman whose personal life is a mess, or a strong woman whining about the glass ceiling, or having the vapors because someone said something, or some dithery and charming ingénue, eaten up with equally charming neuroses. Or any one of a number of other stereotypes… which are, frankly, getting a little boring. In real life, in flyover country, most of us know a Sarah Palin, sometimes a great many of them; strong and competent women with happy marriages, well-adjusted families, and a long career of service to their communities… or for the places where they worked. They are not nearly as rare as they might appear – it’s just that the job openings for governor and VP-nominee are not nearly enough to absorb them all, and to be honest, the interest of the media is a sometime and fleeting thing. So what it is it about a hitherto mostly obscure local politician, with a personal story arc that looks like something assembled from a collection of upbeat country songs and those Lifetime Channel made for TV movies which have a kick-ass happy ending? (Yeah, all three of them….)

Basically, it’s because she is an archetype – the frontier woman. Or the pioneer woman, and that’s a sort that we haven’t really seen front and center for a bit. Well, not on the national stage, anyway. In the military maybe; lots of that sort of woman. Tough as nails, do not take a lot of BS or give it out, supremely competent, unflappable, and amusing to hang out with, comfortable in her own skin. Now and again you might see that kind of woman appear briefly in a supporting role. But even in the 19th century, they weren’t especially thick on the ground… except possibly on the American frontier – although such marvelous women did make occasional appearances in other venues.

As I wrote a couple of months ago, about Lizzie Johnson– schoolteacher, cattle baroness, landowner, writer and bookkeeper – such women had no other habitat than on the frontier. Which was a tough place, despite many romantic notions about it; dangerous, devoid of the usual support systems that women of the Victorian era, no matter of what class were accustomed to. Women on the frontier died in childbirth, of various unpleasant illnesses to include spousal abuse, went mad, were killed in accidents and Indian raids… but many of them thrived in the relative social freedom. Some of them even went to the extent of putting on mens’ clothing, but many of them did just fine in their own.

In one the books on my shelf for research – a volume about cattle ranching – there is a picture of three young women in the corral of a cattle ranch in Colorado in the 1890s. Two of them are in properly modest, dark-colored, ankle-length dresses, and the youngest wears a light-colored dress with a ruffled hem that comes down to the top of her high-buttoned shoes. All of them are wearing straw boaters. The girl in the short dress and one of the older girls are holding braided lariats, drawn tight on the fore and hind legs of a cow laying on the ground. The third girl is holding a long-handled branding iron, as a small woodfire burns a short distance away. The three girls, according to the caption, are the daughters of a well-to-do rancher, who wanted to be sure that they had every necessary skill to carry on with the business of the ranch after his death – even those skills which were normally carried out by male ranch hands. Frontier women, god bless them. They could probably go into the parlor, after a round of calf-branding, and do a mean round of cross-stitch embroidery, and then host a meeting of the Women’s Library Book Committee.

In the end, it’s all about competence – not if you are male or female. Can you do the job and not whine, or ask for special treatment. So that’s why we like Sarah Palin – she’s a frontier woman, a hundred years after the frontier.

Interesting Take

09. September 2008 · Comments Off on Interesting Take · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Politics, World

I remember the ’72 election well – and how the mad antics of some McGovern supporters really, really did horrify a lot of other people. It all reflected quite badly on him – who was otherwise a fairly well-thought-of and otherwise undistinguished politico. Those election-year stunts drove – so the conventional wisdom goes – a lot of people into voting for Nixon. Happening again? This blogger thinks so. Interesting take here – can’t remember where I found it. Not through LGF… to much madness among the lizardlings, these days.

Unbelievable

06. September 2008 · Comments Off on Unbelievable · Categories: Ain't That America?, Politics, Rant

We’re half watching the McCain/Palin rally in Colorado Springs.  There are a lot of American Flags in the audience.  Where did they all come from?

Apparently, vendors cleaning up Invesco Field after the DNC found them heading for the trash!

I know, to many people the American Flag is just a party favor, to others, kind of big deal.

To me, it tells me that I can’t even think about voting Democrat.  The organizers gave no thought to taking care of all those flags if folks didn’t want to take them home.  The participants gave no thought to what to do with them after they were done waving them.

No consideration.  That’s what I can expect from the Democrats, and that’s what I’ll give them.

They simply don’t get anyone outside of their scope.

Yet More Evidence

05. September 2008 · Comments Off on Yet More Evidence · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, sarcasm

… that the mainstream media and the elites who run them are – to put it mildly – way out of touch with ‘fly-over’ America, and may have fatally misunderestimated the Palin appeal.

Item One (courtesy of the Great Blogfaddah) – Oprah balks at hosting Sarah Palin.

Item Two (courtesy of Rantburg, my source for all things pointed and sarky) Angry readers dump US over Palin.

I’m sure there are more out there. My one rather mild regret is that I don’t watch Oprah or read US, so I can’t join in the glorious pile-on of angry subscribers or watchers.

See, here’s the thing; I’ve got nothing against the hosts of TV shows, or the publishers of magazines favoring one political candidate over another. Hey, free country and all that. It’s when those hosts and publishers forget their main demographic and appear to be openly supporting one side over the other. It’s going to cheese off at least half the audience or readership, and I am surprised as heck that I have to explain this to people who have been in the biz since I was in high school.

You piss off your main audience at your peril. Two words to remember: Dixie Chicks.

John McCain – You Magnificent Bastard!

29. August 2008 · Comments Off on John McCain – You Magnificent Bastard! · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Politics, Rant, World

So, late to the blog-reaction party, being out and about this morning, in my some-time employer’s high-off-the-ground bright yellow jeep with the ranch advertising etched on the windows, collecting my paycheck from the Large Corporate Entity and buying groceries. I had the classical music station on, which didn’t go to a newsbreak that I heard for most of the morning… eh, it was the same with 9-11. I wasn’t aware for hours.

But upon returning to the house… and wow! Talk about getting inside the Obamanation’s decision loop. Or as they say in chess parlance, ‘check’. That strange whistling sound must be that of the air rushing out of whatever room that the Obama-Biden campaign is strategizing in. Tell me, who the hell made speeches last night? There were some speeches last night at the Democratic convention, weren’t there? This is such a true maverick move. I can’t stop chortling. Somewhere, Hilary Clinton must be shredding that orange pantsuit, snarling “Mine! It should have been mine!” and making life hell for whoever is with her. In a truly just world, that would be Mr. Bill, ex-prez and aficionado of young interns.

Picking Sarah Palin for the VP slot – youngish, sharp, attractive, female, with administrative experience as a mayor and governor, mother of children, blue-collar husband, soldier son, another political maverick – oh, a Veep candidate who is proof against the arrows and slings of the hard-core Kossacks. They can’t chuck stones at her without having them rebound on them tenfold! Honestly, the only way she could be made more critic-proof would be if she were black or mixed race, spoke Spanish as her first language and was a lesbian – admittedly that last would be hard to square with the marriage and five children.

Oh, man – this campaign has just all of a sudden gotten fun. Break out the popcorn, now we are all paying attention. To loosely quote J.P Rourke, “Old age and treachery beat out youth, speed and a bad haircut.”

Later – more from the peerless Iowahawk, waxing homeric.

Wednesday Miscellany

27. August 2008 · Comments Off on Wednesday Miscellany · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

Honestly, I have tried to take an interest in the Democratic National Convention shenanigans, including the imminent coronation of the One True Anointed Savior, our Lord Obama, hailed and attended by his loving spouse (WTF? She who now channels Mrs. Cleaver), his prospective running mate, Joe “For the Love of God, Put a Sock In it!” Biden, and protected by his worshipful phalanx of minions, the national and international press. As I had assumed previously, most of them are so far into the tank for him that they need a deep-sea diving suit with an iron helmet and a crew in a boat above, keeping the air supply pump going.

So Hillary Clinton came out, probably grinding her teeth inaudibly, and made like a good sport – all props for political graciousness and thinking long. We have probably not heard the last of her, but I wish I could say the same of the orange pantsuit. Yeesh! What was that all about – is there a subtle message being sent, by wearing something a color reminiscent of prisoner jumpsuits?

Recreate ’68… oh, talk about bad ideas that just won’t f***ing die already. The antics at the 1968 convention as good as handed that election to Richard Nixon, remember? And the street theater/riots outside the convention in the streets of Chicago did not play very well with the rest of the country, for as much jolly good fun as they might have been for the participants. They used to say that if you could remember the 60s, then you must have not been there where it was all happening, man. Does that mean that if you were there in the 60s, than you can’t remember anything about them, except for the sex, drugs and rock and roll? Must be, I guess.

This last weekend NPR was drooling all over the sweet, sweet memories of 1968, with special and lavish attention to a visit to Vietnam and a pilgrimage to the site of the My Lai massacre. Sweet Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick, from the way they flog the bones of that particular deceased equine, you’d have thought that was the only event of significance which ever happened in Vietnam during the last half of the last century. There’s barely a word about anything else; just now and eternal My Lai. I think the Vietnamese Tourist board must have a special package tour for NPR and Pacifica Radio broadcasters. Straight from the airport to the memorial, with a special bonus package added to interview a survivor through the usual interpreter.

And speaking of history and eternal subjects and interviews – what is it with Dr. Zahi Hawass and being on every damn History Channel documentary about ‘fill in the blank’ of Ancient Egypt. Yeah, I know that he is secretary general of the supreme council of antiquities, but by the Holy Tomb of Saint Helena Rubenstein, the Patron Saint of Makeup Artists, couldn’t he step aside once in a while and let someone else soak up some air time? I deeply believe that the most dangerous place in Egypt these days must be anywhere between Dr. Hawass and a documentary producer’s TV camera.

Well, that’s about it… except that final editing is ongoing on the final book of the “Adelsverein Trilogy” is proceeding apace, I have not yet run screaming from the current regular employer’s phone bank where I take hotel reservations three afternoons a week, I am building a shiny new and modern website for my other prospective employer, the Small Local Publisher.

And just this very morning, I decided what the new writing project will be. Another trilogy, set on the 19th century frontier. Notes and research to commence at once. It will incorporate some of the minor characters from “Adelsverein”, but be entirely independent from that trilogy and tell entirely new stories. I can hardly wait…

Michael Phelps ROCKS!!!

15. August 2008 · Comments Off on Michael Phelps ROCKS!!! · Categories: Ain't That America?, World

but you knew that.

That’s all…move along.

Memo: Telling Stories

13. August 2008 · Comments Off on Memo: Telling Stories · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Literary Good Stuff, sarcasm, That's Entertainment!

To: Professor Denise Spelburg,
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Clarifying Matters Literary and Beyond

1. According to the story here (which may need registration to complete the link – sorry!) you are painting yourself in colors of victimhood, now that you are being righteously criticized on line and have received a ton of so-called hate-mail, for your part on kicking up an all-mighty fuss about a bodice-ripping historical novel about the youngest wife of Mohammed. (Or would that be a burka-ripping historical novel?) Welcome to the real world, professor… it’s that place that extends somewhat beyond academia, where reactions to words and ideas can sometimes get wild and woolly.

2. In this real world, we have writers – sort of like myself, as a matter of fact – who like to tell stories to people, sometimes quite lengthy stories based on historical characters, facts and incidents. This is a whole genre out there, loosely known as “historical fiction”. At one extreme, the best of them are carefully researched and stray no farther from verifiable and researched historical fact than anyone in your own university department. Then there is the other extreme, in which practically anything goes. In either case the operative word is “fiction”… which means, my dear Professor… that stuff is made up. Created out of whole cloth. Imagined. Clear so far on that concept?

3. At least, you are well-enough acquainted with enough of that world to know that provoking the adherents the so-called religion of peace can have occasionally fatal consequences. I am cynically amused to note that in your academic world Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” is worthy of defending against threats of violence because he can, according to the story “…claim he was raising an existential, theological query, however impertinent. Jones’ book is a mere burlesque.”

4. Ahh, we see – some ideas and authors are more equal than others. A piece of light and fluffy historical fiction is not worthy of the protections afforded to the heavyweights of the intellectual world. Duly noted, Professor. You are a self-important snob, as well as being a tattle-tale and a bit of a coward. If doing a nice little blurb for “The Jewel of Medina” was beneath the dignity of a heavy-weight intellectual and scholar such as yourself, then wouldn’t a polite note to the management at Random House, declining to comment have been sufficient, with or without the back-up from your lawyer. You didn’t want your name and credentials attached to Ms. Jones’s book in any way. I – and hardly anyone else has a problem with that.

5. The breathless warning to your friend at the altmuslim discussion group was in the long term, neither helpful or necessary. In fact, it seems rather malicious; “Ohhh, she is talking such trash about you… and what are you going to do about it?” is the way that it comes off to those of us who remember junior high school pretty well. Professor, we didn’t like that kind of nasty, passive-aggressive manipulation then, and we like it even less now. Perhaps that is how the game is still played in academia these days – but again, in the real world, it doesn’t go over well. Take note.

6. Finally, I can’t help wondering if this is a little bit of unseemly possessiveness about the subject on your part. I would assume that you have a great deal invested in your visualization of Aisha, and did not take very well to another writer picturing something different. There is one other historical researcher who has done a great deal on the Stephens Townsend Party, the subject of my own historical novel. I got a very odd, hostile vibe from him, when I communicated with him – it was as if their story was his exclusive property and I was trespassing on it by imagining something different. I am grateful that I did not ask that particular researcher for a blurb for Truckee – at least he did not sic the forces of the Oregon-California Trail Association on me for my trouble!

7. I do think Ms. Jones ought to be grateful to you, however. “Jewel of Medina” will now probably sell in quantities several times over what it would have, if you had just quietly given a pass on blurbing it to begin with.

Hoping you will find these remarks helpful
I remain the unrepentant scribbler of historical fiction,

Sgt Mom

Still Here, Still Busy

12. August 2008 · Comments Off on Still Here, Still Busy · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, The Funny, World

(I am still here, just frantically busy – for your amusement and delectation, a story sent to me by another IAG writer)

A Texas rancher got in his pickup and drove to a neighboring ranch and knocked at the door. A young boy, about 9, opened the door.

“Yer Dad home?’ the rancher asked.

‘No sir, he ain’t,’ the boy replied. ‘He went into town.”

“Well,” said the rancher, ‘is yer Mom here?’

“No, sir, she ain’t here neither. She went into town with Dad.”

“How about your brother, Howard? Is he here?”

“He went with Mom and Dad.”

The rancher stood there for a few minutes, shifting from one foot to the other and mumbling to himself.

“Is there anything I can do fer ya?” the boy asked politely. “I knows where all the tools are, if you want to borry one. Or maybe I could take a message fer Dad.”

“Well,” said the rancher uncomfortably, “I really wanted to talk to yer Dad. It’s about your brother, Howard, getting my daughter, Pearly Mae, pregnant.”

The boy considered for a moment “You would have to talk to Pa about that,” he finally conceded. “If it helps you any, I know that Pa charges $50 for the bull and $25 for the boar, but I really don’t know how much he gets fer Howard.”

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